Urban Equity: Restoring and Renewing Communities

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

• How visionary leadership and collaboration can create places that promote inclusiveness and equity
• How innovative public-private partnerships and investment can empower and regenerate communities
• How planning and development inform local history, culture, and values and contribute to community ownership and pride

MORE SESSION DETAILS

At its best, design and planning have the capacity to increase the economic, environmental, and social vitality of cities. This session will explore how planning and development informed by local history, culture, and values engages and empowers residents and and contributes to community ownership and pride. Regenerating places and communities without displacement requires creative approaches to financing, development, and programming, as well as design. Innovative solutions require visionary leadership and collaborative, public-private partnerships and investments between civic leaders, philanthropy, private developers, public agencies, and communities, as well as participatory planning processes that inform and shape the vision, goals, and physical form. This session will explore these questions and themes through the stories of two award-winning projects: SteelStacks Arts and Cultural Campus — the transformation of an abandoned steel plant into a mixed-use cultural and entertainment district in Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) — and Iberville Offsite Rehabs, the rehabilitation of 26 scattered-site historic houses into 46 homes for low-income families in New Orleans. The developers of the projects will offer firsthand perspectives of the opportunities and challenges, including insight and lessons learned.